Magid M. Abraham (born April 13, 1958) is an

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...

and expert on

market research Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers: know about them, starting with who they are. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining competitiveness. Mar ...

, consumer modeling, and information systems. He has held several executive positions, two of which were within companies he founded. Abraham authored articles in academic and industry journals, including the ''

Harvard Business Review ''Harvard Business Review'' (''HBR'') is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard University. ''HBR'' is published six times a year and is headquartered in Brighton, Ma ...

'', '' Journal of Marketing Research'', and '' Marketing Science''. He is a speaker at marketing industry conferences.

Early life

Abraham was born in Mashghara, a small town in

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...

, where he was raised on his father’s fruit farm. His interests in school included math, science, and especially physics, and this fascination has remained with him throughout his life. He attended

’s high school, followed by Paris’ engineering university,

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

. He went to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

to attend the

MIT Sloan School of Management The MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan or Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs, ...

, where he graduated with an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

in 1981 and later a PhD in

operations research Operations research ( en-GB, operational research) (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve decis ...

Career

Abraham joined Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) in 1985. He served as IRI president and chief operating officer from 1993 to 1994, and vice chairman of the board of directors from 1994 until 1995. At IRI, Abraham designed marketing applications that eventually became standards of CPG marketing practice, as referenced in his articles 'Promoter: An Automated Promotion Evaluation System', 1987, Marketing Science and 'An Implemented System for Improving Promotion Productivity Using Store Scanner Data', 1993, Marketing Science. Abraham was founder and CEO of Paragren Technologies in 1995, which became part of

Siebel Systems Siebel Systems, Inc. () was a software company principally engaged in the design, development, marketing, and support of customer relationship management (CRM) applications—notably Siebel CRM. The company was founded by Thomas Siebel and Pat ...

. In 1999, Abraham co-founded comScore, an Internet market intelligence company where he served as CEO for 14 years and took public in 2007. comScore was selected as a “Technology Pioneer” by the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...

before the forum’s annual conference in Davos in 2007. In 2016, Abraham stepped down as executive chairman and resigned from comScore's board of directors and became the executive chairman of APX Labs (later renamed Upskill). Linda Abraham became vice chair. During the same year, Abraham became a visiting scholar at Stanford and taught for three years at the Graduate School of Business. In January 2008, Abraham joined the board of directors of Milo.com, a company founded by his son Jack Abraham which was acquired by eBay in 2010 for $75M. Abraham co-founded NeuraWell, a mental health therapeutics company, where he currently serves as CEO.

Awards and recognition

In 1996, Abraham was awarded the Paul Green Award by the AMA for an article that he co-authored in the Journal of Marketing Research in 1995 described as showing “the most potential to contribute to the practice of marketing research and research in marketing." That award was validated 5 years after the initial publication, with the AMA William F. O'Dell Award in 2000 recognizing research which made a significant, long-term contribution to the marketing discipline. *''2016 :'' Advertising Research Foundation's Great Mind Awards: Lifetime Achievement Award''.'' *''2011'' : MIT Sloan's Buck Weaver Award, for theory and practice in marketing science *''2009'' : American Marketing Association, Charles Coolidge Parlin Marketing Research Award *''2008'' :

Ernst and Young Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational professional services partnership headquartered in London, England. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and Pricewaterh ...

, Entrepreneur Hall of Fame *''2008'' : World Economic Forum, “Technology Pioneer” *''2000'' : American Marketing Association, William F. O’Dell Award *''1992'' : "Top 40 Under 40" awarded by Crain’s Chicago Business, given to 40 business professionals in Chicago annually.

Personal life

In April of 2022, Abraham and his wife purchased a 5,968 square feet condo at Jeffery Soffer's Turnberry Ocean Club in Iseles beach for a reported $14.3 million.

References

External links

Forbes interview with Dr. Abraham
CEO Spotlight
Magid Abraham - Video clip of Davos Debates in China
2009. 11 September 2009.
Photograph: Dr. Abraham at the World Economic Forum on Latin America
2009. Rio de Janeiro. Flickr.com 14 April 2009.
Photograph: Dr. Abraham at the DLD Conference 2010.
Munich. Life.com. 25 January 2010. {{DEFAULTSORT:Abraham, Magid 1958 births 21st-century American businesspeople MIT Sloan School of Management alumni Living people American people of Lebanese descent